rather a damp squib Im afraid, but I understand that an out of court settlement was reached late last year before a judgment was handed down and confidentiality clauses prevent the parties to the case discussing the settlement further. So it seems we will never know how a court might have decided on the evidence that was presented.

Some of you know that I was following the case (under the nom-de-plume spoompliM prior to STW ver 2.1) and posting brief reports of the technical evidence at http://spoomplim.blogspot.com/ and like many others was looking forward to hearing how m'learned had picked his way through the vast amounts of evidence to come to his judgement on the balance of probabilities.

As my parting comment on this I'll just say that while the case itself was to resolve historic events and their causes, at least the design changes that have developed over the years since (whether or not as a consequence of Russ' accident) such as forward facing drop outs and 20mm/15mm bolt through systems provide excellent alternatives for those that seek some comfort (although wouldnt it have been nice to see a common licenced 20mm standard eh?

As Mike Davis over on the other channel once said, "If any engineer sat down with a clean sheet of paper, they wouldn't come up with a design like the one we have for holding wheels into disc-equipped bikes."

The inertia of legacy systems and designs is strong, but despite the slow machinations of the world of fork/hub/brake development the days are numbered for the QR in sport MTBing regardless of their culpability or not. The arguments, however, may be longer lived!

fingers crossed he got a big settlement (which I suspect he did) my partner who has worked in this field (on the insurers side) was amazed it was ran to court especially considering the consequences of them judging against Fox.

Fox must have been trying to call there bluff in order to reduce the settlement fee.

So.....what happens if someone has an accident with the same forks in good working condition? There isnt a precedent to go on so where would they stand? Just thinking is it worth people with this type of design continuing to run such forks? A lad from Hebden Bridge has the same forks and his once came undone- he noticed though and retightened before anything untoward happened.

Why bother seeing it through if Fox are going to pay him enough to cover his medical bills and living expenses for the rest of his life?

If I was Russ I would have done exactly the same, as in the end you have to look out for your own future, screw the moral high ground when it the choice between a comfortable future or struggling to make ends meet.

For Pinder to settle out of court he must have realised that there was a good chance he would lose and get nothing.

A chance, rather than a good chance I'd suggest - after all nothing is ever certain in a court of law. From his perspective, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, and you also get into issues with awarding of costs if the eventual judgement is less than an already offered setttlement. If I was in his shoes I'd not care in the least about setting a precedent - it's all about getting something to help him with the rest of his life.

Not at all surprised Fox didn't want to risk the precedent even if they thought they had a good chance of winning - they had a lot more to lose than Russ by a precedent being set - they surely must have always had an out of court settlement ready and waiting.

For Pinder to settle out of court he must have realised that there was a good chance he would lose and get nothing.

Not necessarily. Fox have far more at stake than Pinder. As others have said, a court ruling would set a precedent and gain a lot of news. So fox may opt to settle out of court, even if it costs them more this time, as it may save money in the future.

There are engineering reasons behind Pinders case and like Stoner, i'm glad there are now improvements in this area.

Stoner - he filed suit at the San Jose Courts as well back in 2005. It didn't go anywhere.
Richc - I was just wondering seeing as California is the land of Litigation and if you can't get a settlement there...

Regardless I'm glad to see he got something. I don't want to get into his fault / their fault, it was a horrible accident which should never have happened.

Personally I would have liked to see fox go through with it as although there is no formalized judgement or precedent set I think it sets an informal precedent that further removes the individual from their personal responsibility and shifts the blame elsewhere. It would also have concluded whether forks are inherently dangerous, which I don't believe they are if operated properly, and looked after. If they were that bad, wouldn't we all be mashed up by now?

PK ripper - many folk have had QRS come lose. Its a known design flaw to have downward facing dropouts, QRs and discs.

It needs a number of things to be less than optimum for it to happen so with many set ups it won't. I personally know of several people who have had the QR losening happen - WHEN THEY HAVE FITTED THE WHEEEL PROPERLY

You see tj, that's fine, but of the people I know and have ridden with for the last 20 years and countless hundreds of miles, there's only one incidence of this that I'm aware of, which was with marzocchi forks and hope quick releases.

So, that begs the question is it just luck or not? I still believe that whilst it's a design that has flaws, they're not sufficiently bad to cause such a number of problems compared with user error. Oh, and before you ask, the one incidence I know of was on my own bike, and I freely accept that on the balance of probabilities it was likely to be my error in putting the wheel on.

PK ripper - for sure its rare that it actually cause issues - but when simple design changes will totally prevent the issue why not make those changes - indeed many fork manufacturers are doing so - all it needs is either the angle of the drop-out changing or the calliper to go in front of the fork leg. Then the issue goes away.

However many hundreds of miles they might have done, that's still a pretty small sample you've got there, pk. Negative evidence for such incidents which happen relatively rarely is no evidence at all. We're not all mashed up because it does take a particular set of circumstances to happen.

Meanwhile I'm aware of several instances of it happening, including one where I'm pretty sure it wasn't user error.

<Oops - not actually the real TJ - though in this instance I have a very similar viewpoint to him>

Really? Not doubting your knowledge, just surprised by the timescale (for those who don't know, the original incident was in early 2003), having a certain amount of experience of how long these things take to get to the court stage. Unless of course such a court filing in the US is a rather different point in the process compared to the UK.

Whatever the legal ins and outs I now have Pikes on my bike... £400 poorer is better than a broken neck. Hope Russ Pinder can now live life as fully as he can now he (presumably) has financial security...

I'm happy Russ seems to have got what he wanted. If nothing else it will have made manufacturers rethink their design processes and that benefits us all.

As far as the design goes, as mentioned above (whilst it is pretty crap), hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of riders have been using disks with suspension forks for twenty years and have (statistically speaking) not had any issues at all. I've been using them for 10 years and never had a wheel come out, even when the QR has been loose because I've not done it up properly. It's a very special set of circumstances that can create this problem.

I've broken 4 cranks in that time and each time I've slewed sideways dramatically and have luckily not shot under a car or fallen off a cliff. From my perspective, crank design is fundamentally flawed and should be rectified. But then I've been a lot luckier than Russ.